Author: Minal Bopaiah - Page 46 - Subscription Insider

The Globe and Mail Launches Dashboard With Paywall

Industry Announcements, News, Technology / Minal Bopaiah

The big news this week is that Canadian paper The Globe and Mail has joined the paywall bandwagon with “Globe Unlimited.” With a 10-article meter, The Globe and Mail seems to have taken its cue from The New York Times (the site also allows visitors to come in under the meter through social media and gives weekly print subscribers free access). However, what I find most interesting is that the site has also launched a sophisticated dashboard. The…

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Case Study Lessons: JTS.tv Markets its Business Model to Get Subscribers

Entertainment and Streaming, News / Minal Bopaiah

Most paid content and subscription site owners instinctively withhold information about their revenues and profit distribution. While that’s understandable, some paid content sites are finding success by marketing their business model along with their content. Take for example JTS.tv, the subject of this week’s Case Study on our sister site Subscription Site Insider. Jumping on the emerging trend of original, Internet television, the site is committed to promoting quality, independent television. To do so, the site…

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Music Streaming Subscription Site Deezer Has 2 Million Paying Subscribers

FInance, News / Minal Bopaiah

It looks like the online subscription music business is booming. The latest news is that Paris-based (and global presence) Deezer has 2 million paying subscribers. Assuming all the subscribers have chosen the monthly subscription price of £4.99 a month, Deezer is set to earn £119 million in profits this year. Yet, the site is still getting venture capital funding, most recently $130 million from Access Industries (owned by Warner Music Group), and operating on a loss. CEO…

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Paid Online Subscriptions Pay Off for Newspapers and Their Investors

FInance, News / Minal Bopaiah

While the online subscription industry is a $15 billion-a-year business across a variety of niches, the news industry has had the most difficulty capitalizing on paid content. But since the New York Times launched a metered paywall in 2010, more and more newspapers have been willing to experiment with paywalls and online subscriptions. And now it seems that those experiments have paid off. The Wall Street Journal reported that newspaper stocks are up 50% to 80% in…

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QR Codes Get Great Response Rate in Marketing Websites

News, Subscriber Acquisition, Subscription Apps / Minal Bopaiah

QR codes and other digital action codes — like Microsoft tags and digital watermarks — are getting great response rates in print marketing pieces for websites and eCommerce, according to a recent article on Audience Development. A recent study conducted by mobile marketing and technology firm Nellymoser found that digital action codes now exceed direct mail engagement (4.5% to 5.9% response rate v. 4.4%). And, as you can see from the chart below, other marketing techniques, like…

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Google Lets You Create a Trial Subscription With Credit Card for Android Apps

News, Payment Processing, Subscriber Acquisition, Subscription Apps / Minal Bopaiah

Great news for content creators finding success with apps! Google Play will now let you create a free trial within a subscription app. Unlike Apple, Google’s rules are surprisingly merchant-friendly. For starters, Google Play (formerly the Android store) will require prospects to enter a credit card when signing up for the free trial. Google will charge the prospect’s credit card $0.00, and then automatically bill them the normal subscription price after completion of the trial. This is…

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Are Plain Text ‘Mobile Version’ Emails Really Helping Your Conversions?

News, Subscriber Acquisition, Subscription Apps, Technology / Minal Bopaiah

There’s a lot of talk about mobile these days, especially about optimizing your site for mobile usage (or creating a native app). As Subscription Site Central has cautioned before, you should examine your analytics before making any decision to optimize your site for mobile viewing. But even if you’ve decided that your site or publication doesn’t need a mobile presence, you should probably be optimizing your emails for mobile viewing. That’s because more and more Americans are viewing…

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Variety Sold for $25 Million to Penske Media Despite Poor Paywall Practices

Business Services, FInance, News, Technology / Minal Bopaiah

Subscription site Variety – and its print publication – was bought this past Tuesday for $25 million by Penske Media Corp., owned by Internet entrepreneur Jay Penske. The site was initially valued at $50 million by its parent company, Reed Elsevier. But in its heyday, the site turned down $350 million offers. Thus, even though the site has 17,000 paying subscribers, The New York Times called the recent deal a “firesale” and paidContent surmised that the low…

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NY Times Launches Subscribers-Only Web-Based iPad App

News, Subscription Apps, Technology / Minal Bopaiah

There’s a lot of buzz about The New York Times’ new Web-based iPad app. Here’s what you need to know as a subscription site executive: The app is Web-based and uses HTML5 technology. This means that the app is not “native,” but can be updated without having to go through Apple store approval –thereby cutting down production-to-distribution time. In addition, users will not have to update the app, since it’s automatically updated when the Web browser is…

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Google Wallet Experiments With Single-Article Paywalls

News, Payment Processing, Technology / Minal Bopaiah

Google Wallet announced that it will be working with Electronic Arts, Oxford University Press, Dorling Kindersley and Pearson’s Peachpit to test its per-page paywall. The technology would allow Google Wallet users to buy individual articles for around 25 cents to 99 cents via an embedded payment banner and without leaving the website or game. The service uses a pop-up overlay and only shows a preview of the content (see image below). Google plans to allow for instant…

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Insight to drive subscription growth

Minal Bopaiah